Walden, a game

Walden, a game is a first-person game about a year at Walden Pond, made at the USC Game Innovation Lab under Tracy Fullerton. It asks you to live deliberately: walk the woods, keep the cabin, notice the seasons change.

2015–2018 Games Table

Walden, a game — key art: a cairn of stacked stones in the green, still water of Walden Pond, autumn woods on the far shore.

I worked on the production as a research assistant during my MFA in Interactive Media & Games (2015–2018), on a Fulbright scholarship. My part was the PlayStation 4 version: the console port and its release, performance on the older code, localization and the UI. Later I also worked on the Xbox One version, released in 2021.

The game was named Game of the Year and Most Significant Impact at the 2017 Games for Change Awards, and won the Developers’ Choice award at IndieCade 2017.

Game Innovation Lab · waldengame.com · Wikipedia

From the log

2026-09-26

Walden, a game, on PlayStation 4

Walden, a game is the USC Game Innovation Lab’s first-person year at Walden Pond, under Tracy Fullerton. You keep the cabin, walk the woods, and let the season do the rest.

I was a research assistant on it during the MFA, from 2016 to 2018. The job was the PlayStation 4: port the build and ship it, get the older code to run, add a localization system, and work on the UI. Unity and C#.

The lab’s credit is on the Game Innovation Lab people page. The game is at waldengame.com.